The title of this blog entry is stolen from a very short, very funny song by woefully neglected songwriter Biff Rose, (who coincidentally is getting some attention because a song of his was recently covered by Vetiver, on their new album of covers, Things of the Past. BTW, Rose has been covered by David Bowie - Fill Your Heart from Hunky Dory, and by John Denver - Molly's Song.)
Anyway, the song lyric is, "He's just a shell of a man, but if you put him to your ear you can hear the ocean roar."
It's how I feel about Sarah Palin,
Her interview with the less-than-agressive Charlie Gibson, who put on his serious face, but rarely directly challenged one of Palin's vapid, rehearsed, and contradictory answers. His idea of a "gotcha" was "the Bush doctrine." She was rightfully confused. WTF is the Bush doctrine? To act without thinking? To lie repeatedly with no remorse? To send us into an immoral, murderous, treasury-draining war? To alienate our allies? To rob us of our liberty? To keep administration crimes and corruption top secret? C'mon Charlie.
So what was Palin's response when she finally thought she figured out what Gibson was referring to? She thinks George Bush was agressively pursuing those who are "hellbent on our destruction." Does that mean he's sending the troops into to attack Wall Street bankers, hedge-fund operators and high-risk mortgage lenders?
"Hellbent?" The Bush administration, and conservative zealots like Sarah Palin have done more to bring us to the brink of hell than any terrorist has ever done. We are now a morally and financially bankrupt nation which has abandoned the poor and the middle class for the increasing profit of the rich. We have tortured, kidnapped, imprisoned and murdered in the name of liberty. We have created a deeply secret shadow government of spies, eavesdroppers, felons and mercenaries. We have abetted divisions between race, class, religion and economic status. And we've done it all with our hands on our hearts saluting a flag soiled by a patriotic tunnel vision that doesn't allow us to examine the destruction we leave in our path.
And where does Sarah Palin place the responsibility? In God's lap. And her empty-headed trust in a vengeful God is challenged, she passes the squawling baby of war to Abraham Lincoln.
I know that if I visited the Lincoln Memorial today, Abe Lincoln would have his head hung low.
Saras Palin is bad. As bad as George Bush. Sarah Palin is dangerous. As dangerous as Dick Cheney. She is willing to sacrifice any sense she might have had for honesty and decency to push forward an idealogy which is as frightening as it is divisive. She will push us into war with Russia. She will rail against big government while she fortifies the military industrial complex. Like an inquisitioner blinded by zealotry, she will invoke the name of Jesus as she stands ankle-deep in the blood of the infidel.
She is a vessel into which conservative idealogues have poured the venom of their philosophy. She is a blank slate upon which Karl Rove has written his disdain for the freedom and liberty of his countrymen. She is a puppet whose strings are being pulled by the rich and the powerful, who will crush you to make the wine that intoxicates them. She is the opposite of what she says she is, and when she corrects what she says, she is the opposite again.
I'm angry and insulted, and I hope you are too. As Johnny Rotten once sang, "Anger is an energy." I hope this anger drives me, and you, to work our asses off to be sure that this monster is not elected to sit within a heartbeat of the presidency.
